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CNN Live At Daybreak
Road Map to Peace Has Powell in Cairo, Egypt
Aired May 12, 2003 - 05:31 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: We want to get more now on Colin Powell's mission. The road map to peace has him in Cairo, Egypt today. He's scheduled to meet with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to discuss a peace plan which calls for an independent Palestinian state in 2005.
And before arriving in Cairo, Powell met with top Israeli and Palestinian leaders. He said on Israeli television that there was enough agreement on the so-called road map to peace for both sides to begin peace talks.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: I spoke to both prime ministers about the importance of the two prime ministers, Prime Minister Abbas and Prime Minister Sharon, getting together as soon as possible. And I leave encouraged by my conversations with both of them that this can happen in the near future.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: No specific date has been set for the Sharon-Abbas meeting, but it is expected to take place in the next few days.
For more on the Israeli-Palestinian situation, we take you live to Jerusalem.
Jerrold Kessel is standing by there with the latest -- good morning, Jerrold.
JERROLD KESSEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.
You said a hard road. I'd say a really hard road, darned hard road that has to be traversed to get the Israelis and Palestinians back from confrontation and back to negotiation.
But Colin Powell's strategy all through this very busy weekend that he had before flying off to Egypt, as you say, this morning, and prior to that he had met with the members of the international quartet who had laid down that road map to peace.
Mr. Powell, throughout the mission, had been saying well, the objective is simply get moving. Let's not get distracted, he told both the Israelis and Palestinians, by your differences. Obviously deep differences between the two sides. Let's not get distracted by the blame that each side attaches to the other for not wanting to go first. Let's simply get moving, carry out the steps which you have promised to start and to begin implementing those steps.
That's the message that Mr. Powell delivered.
But having said that, both that message and the way that this two day mission is being viewed shows a very distinct difference of the estimate of whether it was valuable, whether anything had been achieved.
The Palestinians very disappointed, they say, by the fact that the U.S. doesn't seem to be pressing Israel's prime minister, Ariel Sharon, at all, not nearly hard enough, to get him to sign onto this peace plan. And the Palestinians say if Mr. Sharon doesn't sign on, why should we be forced to abide by the obligations which we are supposed to do under the terms of the road map?
The Israelis, for their part, say that they were pleased to hear Mr. Powell insist that there must be a radical crackdown on the militants on the Palestinian side by the new Palestinian administration and also that Mr. Powell's piece by piece, slowly, slowly approach is probably the most effective one.
Well, either way, Mr. Powell may have been more interested in cooling the tensions and getting the two sides started in a small way as a way of ending the violence. But that clearly hasn't been successful because what we've seen through the early hours of this morning are more violent incidents down in Gaza, where three Palestinians have been killed, two militants in Rafah, where Israel was trying to stop the arms smuggling from Egypt into Gaza, and a Palestinian teenagers in unclear circumstances near a Jewish settlement.
And Israel has closed off the whole of the Gaza Strip from Palestinian workers crossing into Israel because, it says, it has new reports of planned terror attacks inside Israel.
So not a lot seems to have been achieved other than the promise of that meeting between Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian prime minister, and the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon.
But the U.S.'s message is we're involved, we're assertive now, we're back in the picture and we mean to press you time and time again. That may be the saving grace of this still very difficult road that the two sides have to traverse.
And one final picture, Carol. There was a very interesting political cartoon in one of the Israeli newspapers this morning. It shows Colin Powell in a plane about to take off, his ear to the telephone and the message he seems to be saying to whoever is on the other side of that line, "Iraq was a cake walk compared to this" -- Carol.
COSTELLO: Oh, Jerrold Kessel, many thanks, live from Jerusalem this morning.
You can stay on top of developments between the Israelis and Palestinians by clicking onto our Web site. The address, cnn.com, AOL keyword: CNN.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired May 12, 2003 - 05:31 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: We want to get more now on Colin Powell's mission. The road map to peace has him in Cairo, Egypt today. He's scheduled to meet with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to discuss a peace plan which calls for an independent Palestinian state in 2005.
And before arriving in Cairo, Powell met with top Israeli and Palestinian leaders. He said on Israeli television that there was enough agreement on the so-called road map to peace for both sides to begin peace talks.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: I spoke to both prime ministers about the importance of the two prime ministers, Prime Minister Abbas and Prime Minister Sharon, getting together as soon as possible. And I leave encouraged by my conversations with both of them that this can happen in the near future.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: No specific date has been set for the Sharon-Abbas meeting, but it is expected to take place in the next few days.
For more on the Israeli-Palestinian situation, we take you live to Jerusalem.
Jerrold Kessel is standing by there with the latest -- good morning, Jerrold.
JERROLD KESSEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.
You said a hard road. I'd say a really hard road, darned hard road that has to be traversed to get the Israelis and Palestinians back from confrontation and back to negotiation.
But Colin Powell's strategy all through this very busy weekend that he had before flying off to Egypt, as you say, this morning, and prior to that he had met with the members of the international quartet who had laid down that road map to peace.
Mr. Powell, throughout the mission, had been saying well, the objective is simply get moving. Let's not get distracted, he told both the Israelis and Palestinians, by your differences. Obviously deep differences between the two sides. Let's not get distracted by the blame that each side attaches to the other for not wanting to go first. Let's simply get moving, carry out the steps which you have promised to start and to begin implementing those steps.
That's the message that Mr. Powell delivered.
But having said that, both that message and the way that this two day mission is being viewed shows a very distinct difference of the estimate of whether it was valuable, whether anything had been achieved.
The Palestinians very disappointed, they say, by the fact that the U.S. doesn't seem to be pressing Israel's prime minister, Ariel Sharon, at all, not nearly hard enough, to get him to sign onto this peace plan. And the Palestinians say if Mr. Sharon doesn't sign on, why should we be forced to abide by the obligations which we are supposed to do under the terms of the road map?
The Israelis, for their part, say that they were pleased to hear Mr. Powell insist that there must be a radical crackdown on the militants on the Palestinian side by the new Palestinian administration and also that Mr. Powell's piece by piece, slowly, slowly approach is probably the most effective one.
Well, either way, Mr. Powell may have been more interested in cooling the tensions and getting the two sides started in a small way as a way of ending the violence. But that clearly hasn't been successful because what we've seen through the early hours of this morning are more violent incidents down in Gaza, where three Palestinians have been killed, two militants in Rafah, where Israel was trying to stop the arms smuggling from Egypt into Gaza, and a Palestinian teenagers in unclear circumstances near a Jewish settlement.
And Israel has closed off the whole of the Gaza Strip from Palestinian workers crossing into Israel because, it says, it has new reports of planned terror attacks inside Israel.
So not a lot seems to have been achieved other than the promise of that meeting between Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian prime minister, and the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon.
But the U.S.'s message is we're involved, we're assertive now, we're back in the picture and we mean to press you time and time again. That may be the saving grace of this still very difficult road that the two sides have to traverse.
And one final picture, Carol. There was a very interesting political cartoon in one of the Israeli newspapers this morning. It shows Colin Powell in a plane about to take off, his ear to the telephone and the message he seems to be saying to whoever is on the other side of that line, "Iraq was a cake walk compared to this" -- Carol.
COSTELLO: Oh, Jerrold Kessel, many thanks, live from Jerusalem this morning.
You can stay on top of developments between the Israelis and Palestinians by clicking onto our Web site. The address, cnn.com, AOL keyword: CNN.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
